The Wild Wolf Pup (Zoe's Rescue Zoo #9)(69)

“I wouldn’t change a damn thing about you, Victor Pastore.” I smile, leaning my forehead against his. “Everything you are is everything I fell in love with. If given the chance, I’d do it all again and I wouldn’t change any part of our story except one thing…”

He closes his eyes as he splays his palms against the small of my back. I wait for him to look into my eyes before I continue.

“I’d change the ending,” I cry, tracing my thumb along his lower lip. “There’d be no ending.” I pause, wiping away the lone tear that travels down his cheek. “This won’t end, Victor, this love I have for you, it’ll never die,” I promise.

“Close your eyes, honey, let me paint you one last picture,” I cry.

He did as I asked, closing his eyes tightly. I swallow down the lump lodged in my throat, trying desperately to pull myself together as every chamber of my heart cracks and splits wide open.

How do you say goodbye to the love of your life?

You don’t.

You give him something to hang on to as he waits for you to join him.

“I’m wearing a turquoise silk jumpsuit, the very same one I wore when you first laid eyes on me. I look the same as I did that night, the lines from my face are gone, my hair is brown, but there is a lost look in my eyes as I wander around. I don’t know what I’m searching for but I know the moment I see you with your hand extended toward me, it’s you, you’re exactly what I’ve been searching for.”

He keeps his eyes closed as tears spill from the corners and I do my best to wipe them away, eventually I resign, allowing them to fall, for they are the tears of the love we will one day find again and I welcome them, adding my own to them.

We will meet again.

“You’re wearing that same charcoal suit, with the black turtleneck and gold chain. Your lines have faded, your hair just as dark as it was that first night, and when you smile at me, it’s a smile full of promise. You ask me my name and I tell you, waiting for you to repeat it back because this is a familiar dance we’re taking,” I continue, stopping a moment to clear my throat.

“I ask you who you are and butterflies take flight inside me as I await your answer. You grin at me and I learn you’re cocky, you're confident, and more than that you believe wholeheartedly the words you’re about to utter.” My voice trails off as I watch his lips part.

“Me? I’m the man you’re going to spend all of eternity with,” he whispers as his eyes flutter open, applying the final touches to the picture I was painting, reminding me this was our picture. Our life. Our love.

“That’s right,” I reply, holding his face as I lean closer to him. “Forever and always, my love.”

“I love you, Gracie,” he rasps. His hands travel up my sides, slowly, knowing it’s the last journey they’ll ever take over me. Finally, he takes my face and I close my eyes as his lips brush across mine.

Soft and endearing.

Painfully heartbreaking.

Lovingly, Victor kisses me one last time. Thirty years of love, three decades of memories and all the lessons we’ve learned melt into that one kiss affirming the one thing that may have once been lost to us—the beautiful love we created will never die.

We’ve found eternal love in a sea full of illicit temptations.

“I’ll see you soon,” I whisper against his lips, pulling back a fraction to stare into his handsome face one last time.

“Goodbye my love, until we meet again,” he says softly.

And we would meet again.

He’ll be the man in the charcoal suit.

I’ll be the woman in a turquoise jumpsuit.

He’ll grin at me and I’ll take his hand and together we’ll be.

Always together.





Chapter Twenty-Seven




It takes a special breed to kill. For me, there has always been a ritual I take part in before I commit the act. In the early days, Val and I would get pissed drunk on a bottle of Dewar’s before we took our guns to the streets. When I became the boss my hands rarely ever got dirty, but I had trust issues, never willing to leave room for error, I always took care of the bodies. I’d drive seven hours to the middle of nowhere, blasting Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ with a shovel beside me and a corpse in the trunk of my Cadillac.

The ritual changed as I got older. I took to God before I slit a throat or pulled the trigger; I prayed for the unsuspecting soul that would meet his maker and while I was at it I threw in an Our Father for myself. It was a crap shoot, really, asking our Heavenly Father to relieve me of all the crimes I committed and those I had yet to, but still, if there was a chance he did then why not take it?

It was selfish of me and in some sense I felt like a coward.

You see, I didn’t think twice before murdering someone. I did it with ease and with confidence. Hell, I did it with grace, each hit becoming more of a work of art than the one before. Even as I dug the holes and covered the bodies with the Earth’s soil I had no regrets. I was cocky and arrogant in murder just as I was in everything else. It wasn’t until I went home with blood on my hands and saw Grace asleep in our bed that I questioned my actions.

I wasn’t afraid of dying; it came with the power, with the suit and the gun. I was afraid of leaving this earth and never seeing my Gracie again. Saint Peter will wait for my beautiful bride, not I, my ass was headed straight to the depths of Hell.